The Wreck Emerged

by Joseph Webers

  Captain Palova wanted to hear what was on Bob’s mind. The room had cleared out, so they sat at a table.

  “In my intelligence job at the agency, I deal with facts. Speculations, rumors, and opinions are useless to me,” Bob said. “The security of our nation depends on the accuracy of the data we give out, so I need all the help I can get. It’s not simply facts I need from you, though, it’s understanding as well. I saw you both wave to our satellite, and you claimed God told you it was there. Then an island appeared, and you stated God told you that, too. I am going to assume everything you told us is true, because I have no other explanation. I am putting my personal thoughts on all this on hold for the time being, because what I personally believe is irrelevant.”

  Matt interrupted. “No, it’s not irrelevant. Look at this as an opportunity to change what you believe based on seeing what God is showing you.”

  “Okay. Anyway, the island is there, and the airplane is on it, as well as other things that were on the plane. My teams have examined what was brought back, and without getting into details you shouldn’t know, life on earth as we know it is being threatened. If that island hadn’t brought that plane to the surface, we would never know it until it was too late. Even now it may be too late, and that is why I’ve come.”

  “If God hadn’t brought Maggie back to see me, we’d both still be strapped into our seat belts at the bottom of the ocean.”

  “Here’s what I need to know and understand. I have to tell you I feel really awkward and funny asking this. And please don’t breathe a word of this conversation to anyone, otherwise the results may be disastrous. Not to you—this is not a threat—but to the whole world.”

  “Okay,” Matt said, “you have our word. Right, Maggie?”

  “Yes, definitely.”

  “When God spoke to you about the island, either in words or dreams or feelings, did he give the slightest explanation of why he wanted it? There have been natural catastrophes and man-made disasters which have killed millions upon millions where God didn’t step in and prevent it. I sense quite an urgency to find out who is behind this. If you can shed any light at all it may point us in the right direction.”

  “Matt and I discussed this before we called up the island and after, and we had no idea why. We didn’t even know the plane was on the island until the Marines came and picked us up.”

  “I don’t remember any part of either dream that I didn’t tell Maggie,” Matt said. “We asked God for wisdom in calling up the island, so it would meet his desires, but neither of us got any answers like that.”

  “Thank you,” Bob said. “We will continue our pursuit, but I thought it would be wise to check with you as part of that pursuit. If you think of anything that might help, it would be best to call Captain Palova.”

  “Before you go,” Matt said, “may we pray for you and ask God to let you be successful?”

  Bob said yes, so Matt and Maggie asked God to give him peace, clarity of mind, and the answers he was looking for.

  Matt looked at Maggie as the two men departed. “Whew!” he said.

  “Whew is right!” she replied. “Almost the same question Phil Henry had.”

  “We need to put this out of our minds for now. We don’t need to have any of this affect our interview later.”

  Mr. Clark’s driver was waiting to take them back. At Matt’s request, he took them to Franklin Square instead of their hotel. “It’s a surprise,” he told Maggie on the way over.

  107

  Classification: SECRET

  From:Bernard C. Mantile

  To:VTC Task Force

  DTG:10:30 AM 2 July 2019 (02JUL19 1430Z)

  Subject:Report of Monetary Tracking

  1. Background:

  a. In May 2019, an individual set up a savings account at Bakersfield Savings Bank (BSB), Bakersfield, California.

  b. On 21 June 2019, the account was accessed at 1:03 a.m. through IP address 191.6.118.145.

  c. $232M was transferred in and immediately transferred out to thirteen separate accounts outside BSB. The account was then deleted.

  d. Treasury was notified 24 June 2019.

  2. Our investigation revealed the following:

  a. Account was set up by a college student who said he and friends were cooperating with federal Treasury agent’s investigation by opening accounts with cash at BSB and giving the account numbers to the agent. After thirty days they would be able to close the account and keep the cash, if everything were in order. Student did not know the account had been deleted.

  b. There was nothing illegal about the transfers into or out of BSB.

  c. BSB would have raised no concerns if the account had not been deleted. The deletion caused an audit flag error of fifty dollars, the amount of the initial deposit.

  d. The deletion of the account erased all transactions for the account. However, those transactions still existed within BSB’s transfer registry. On 27 June 2019 we asked BSB to determine where the funds were transferred from.

  e. On 24 June 2019, Treasury logged on to the Worldwide Bank Registry (WBR) in Amsterdam, to which all banks report transactions of over one million euros. For most banks, including BSB, this is done automatically at the conclusion of the transfer. The WBR entries for 8:03 a.m. UTC showed transfers to thirteen accounts worldwide: Brazil (one), India (four), Italy (one), Serbia (one), US (two), Unknown (four). The registry total for the thirteen transfers was $232M.

  f. There was no record in the WBR of the transfer to BSB.

  g. On 1 July 2019, BSB reported it had tracked the transfer from a bank in Allahabad, India, but there was no associated account number.

  h. Another US agency with contacts in India discovered the funds disappeared from the account of Mr. Hem Laghari just after 2:30 p.m., 21 June 2019, in Allahabad. He was in the process of transferring eighteen billion rupees to the account of India Quality Air. Further investigation revealed that at that time, an unknown individual was in the process of opening an account at the bank, using the IP address shown in paragraph 1b above.

  3. Banks and account numbers referenced in paragraph 2e above will be provided to those proving need-to-know.

  Classification: SECRET

  Classification exempt from Standard Declassification Schedule

  108

  “A jewelry shop?” Maggie asked, after they had walked a couple blocks from where their ride dropped them off.

  “I looked up this place on the Internet this morning. I thought we’d have enough time before the press conference.”

  When they arrived, Matt reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring. “My granddaughter just inherited this ring and we’re wondering what you can tell us about it,” he said to the man behind the counter, who was wearing a nametag that said Pete. Underneath, in small letters, it read Master Jeweler.

  Pete took the ring, winked at Maggie, and said, “It’s nice to inherit things, ain’t it?”

  Maggie laughed, a good hearty hoot. She looked at her “grandfather” Matt and mouthed, “Ask first!”

  She pretended not to see Matt mouth back, “Soap.”

  She turned back to Pete, gestured to Jenny, and told him, “She’s a little young to appreciate it just yet.”

  Pete sprayed a cleaning solution on the ring, rinsed it, dried it off with a cloth, and looked at it with his loupe, which he had pulled down off his forehead. He looked at it some more with a double-lens magnifying glass. He turned around and yelled to someone in the back of the store, “Hey Gino! C’mere! I want ya to see something.”

  While Gino was coming, Pete said, “Two emeralds, mebbe a half carat each. The ruby in the center is mebbe a carat. Hafta measure to be sure. Good color in the stones, worth probly ten grand total. But that ain’t what makes it so valuable. It’s the ring itself. Lookit how it shimmers.”

  By this time Gino had arrived and inspected the ring. “We saw one just like this years ago. It was sapphires that time.” Then to Maggie, he asked, “Where did
you get this?”

  Maggie wanted to say, “Jenny swallowed it when she was dead,” but Matt said, “It was in the belly of a shark for some time, we just don’t know how long.”

  Gino went back to the rear of the shop to the office, and Pete handed them the magnifying glass. “Lookit the surface of the gold.”

  They took turns. “It looks like it has a texture to it.” “It looks almost 3-D.”

  “Yes. The shark’s stomach acid leached away the copper outa the gold. The longer it’s in the stomach, the more copper is gone, and the more it seems to shimmer, ‘cause the light it just bounces around inside the surface of the gold. We’ve tried to duplicate it with different acids but we ain’t never been able to. How big was the shark?”

  Matt estimated based on how much of it they had seen. “It was a twenty-foot great white.”

  Gino came back with a photo of the sapphire ring. “Twenty years ago. The photo doesn’t do it justice. It was caught on something plastic in a great white shark belly and wasn’t able to pass through.” Attached to the photo was an appraisal sheet explaining the circumstances of its condition. “I don’t know exactly how much it would be worth, but if you left it with us a few days, we could get you a fairly accurate estimate.”

  “No thanks,” Maggie said. “This is all my daughter inherited from my father and we’ll let her decide when she’s old enough.”

  After a phone call, John Henderson picked them up at the corner of 14th and H Streets. They had gotten a quick bite to eat at Grist Mill. While Maggie fed Jenny, they had discussed the upcoming press interview. “I guess now that you have Jenny’s photos, you can talk about her foot,” Matt had said.

  “Yes, and we can show them the proof.”

  Betty was not with John. Instead, he introduced Wayne Smith, a talk show host from a local television station. “Wayne will be the interviewer, and he will tell you how the interview will be set up on our way over. Betty will join us there. Go ahead, Wayne.”

  “Hi, Matt, Maggie. Will it be all right if I call you that?” After he got the affirmatives, he continued, “The first thirty minutes will be aired live on several national and cable networks and the BBC. So we have to start right at twelve o’clock sharp, and we need to be in our places by 11:55. Three segments of eight minutes of interviews and two minutes of commercials. We’re not real strict on time. That is, we won’t cut to a commercial while you’re in the middle of a sentence.

  “After that, are you up for an hour or so of recorded free-play where you talk about whatever happened for however long you want, and answer some more questions? That will be more about what you were feeling, what was going on in your minds when the plane was going down, things like that. During the live part, are there any questions you want or don’t want asked? I have a list of questions. Look it over and tell me what you think.”

  He handed them the list and they looked it over together. Maggie answered first. “After the live show, we will be yours for as long as you like as long as Jenny doesn’t get too fussy. I would like to hold her because of her foot, which we haven’t talked about in the interviews so far. I think your viewers would be really interested in knowing what happened from the time the pilot told us to get ready until we ended up in the ocean. We could do a whole eight-minute segment on that alone.

  “I don’t have any questions to add other than what you have, and the list looks like a lot more than thirty minutes. By the way, which BBC station will be airing the show? I want to call my mum and tell her to watch.”

  Wayne didn’t know, but they could check when they got there.

  Matt said, “Please don’t ask these questions about romantic involvement. There was none, and I think the questions would just be a distraction.”

  Wayne made a mental note to put them on the spot, if there were a good opportunity.

  109

  Classification: SECRET

  From:Robert R. McGee

  To:VTC Task Force

  DTG:6:30 PM 2 July 2019 (02JUL19 2230Z)

  Subject:Supplementary Report of Chemical Agent Investigation

  1. Reference email, Robert R. McGee, 02JUL19 1100Z, Subj: Preliminary Report of Island Objects Investigation.

  2. Characteristics of the binary agents:

  a. Chemical structure available upon request.

  b. The two binary constituents join readily when illumined by wavelength 357 nanometers. Volatility: resulting agent diffuses rapidly in air.

  c. Agent is stable in the absence of oxygen. It decomposes rapidly when exposed to air, with half-life approximately eleven minutes. Decomposition in the molecule does not occur at the point of joining. The residue after decomposition will not rejoin and is not toxic.

  d. Agent subject to eight thousand psi (approximate pressure at fifty-four hundred meters sea depth) decomposes into original binary constituents.

  3. Lab has been able to reproduce constituents.

  4. Worldwide search for producers of the chemicals has been refined to suppliers and producers of these constituents.

  5. Investigation and analysis are ongoing.

  Classification: SECRET

  Classification exempt from Standard Declassification Schedule

  110

  It was beginning to get dark on the Amazon River as Kevin Bhatt approached Macapá. Only about a half hour until the barge reached his warehouse. He had been thinking about his dinner date with Manan Ganguly ever since they turned off the Rio Jari and headed east toward the ocean.

  Something didn’t seem right, and dread settled over his thoughts. What did he know about the son of the monkey hunter? One, he had known Kevin was from Macapá. Two, he was incessantly asking questions about his home. Is it in a secure neighborhood? Are the houses close to each other? Kevin had to admit, though, that he had let it slip that he was rather well off, so those questions might have seemed natural to ask if one were from Jaipur. On the other hand, one had to be well-to-do himself, if his father could afford his own ape museum.

  Couple that with recent events with the IBC. Three, Rishaan had lashed out at him about the money. What was the big deal about that? He was glad Dasya was there, or else he might have come back to Brazil with a black eye or worse. Four, why did they send a broken plane? Please keep this at your place, and we’ll send the parts when we can. At least the money came to his account and he could afford to pay the workers. Five, why the drawer full of health brochures? He didn’t need those here.

  When he got to five, he realized he was dead meat. Specifically, lamb. As in, sacrificial lamb, and Manan Ganguly was to be the butcher.

  He had his pilot drop him off at a pier off the Rua do Araxá. “I’m going to have a few at the Bier Haus, and then walk home. Have the men unload the tank at the warehouse. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  When the barge was out of sight, he texted Manan. “Out of town errand lasting until Sat. Sorry I’ll miss you Thurs. Let me know next time you’re in town.”

  Kevin waited at the Bier Haus until he got the reply from Manan, “Yes. OK. Probably late Sept.” He turned off his phone, removed the battery, and started off in the opposite direction from his house, toward the home of an old friend who owed him a favor.

  111

  Rishaan closed his eyes, and a dreamy expression covered his face. “Prisha was on her deathbed. It was so quick. Her family was there, and my parents.” He wiped away a tear. “We were so right for each other. When my parents met her, they agreed, and started making the arrangement with her family.” Another tear. “It was the pollution that caused the cancer, from the smokestacks and vehicles in Allahabad. She would die within the hour. She looked so peaceful, so calm. She said she got a visit during the night, and now she was one with God. She asked me to do what I could, to help end the pollution.”

  Dasya had never heard this story. “She was one with God? Who visited her? Did she explain that at all?”

  “I was so distraught. I wasn’t thinking, I was just staring into her beautiful fac
e. She was talking, but I didn’t hear her words, just her voice. Such a soft, sweet voice. Then she stopped briefly, and I focused on her words again. That’s when she said she was one with God. She smiled at me, and then went into the coma.”

  Rishaan leapt to his feet, the reverie abruptly broken. “So when she spoke,”—he turned and looked Dasya straight in the eye—“it was God speaking!”

  “That was almost twenty years ago,” Dasya reminded him. “And soon, very soon, we will fulfill your promise to her.”

  Rishaan started pacing. “The bastards will pay. And the others will pay. The whole bloody mess of them! Like the sardines in the plane.”

  “There were three sardines that escaped. Did you see the interview on TV last night?”

  “No, and I don’t care about them. It was the plane we needed to get. And now the bloody plane is, is … THERE!”

  “You should have seen the interview, Rishaan. A man and a woman. The woman, mostly. They claimed they called up the island from the bottom of the ocean so the plane would be exposed.” Dasya added the last part to try to explain to himself the serendipitous raising of the aircraft out of the sea.

  “WHAT?! I hate them!”

  “They said God told them to call up the island.”

  “NO! That can’t be!” Rishaan hurled his tea cup across the room, shattering the glass in a picture frame holding a photo of his mother. “They don’t know anything. If our project fails, it will be their fault. If we don’t succeed, I will kill them! I will kill them both! Just like I killed … ”

  “Like you killed who?”

  Rishaan sat down slowly. He didn’t understand how his friend could be so calm about things. Nothing seemed to be going according to plan. First, it was Luka. Then it was Bhatt and his idiot hacker. There might not be any consequence to that, however. Time would tell. As for Bhatt, he brought it on himself. Maybe Dasya just didn’t know.